The Torah says God created the world. It never says God created it from nothing.
For centuries, Jewish thinkers have argued over something hiding in the very first sentence of the Torah.
The Torah begins with perhaps its most famous words: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים — "In the beginning, God created." But does bara mean creating something from nothing—yesh me'ayin? Forming something from pre-existing matter? Bringing order out of chaos? Or separating and setting boundaries?
In this episode of Madlik Disruptive Torah, Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz use Parshat Bereshit to follow one of the great conversations in the history of ideas.
Key Takeaways
- The Torah says God created. It doesn't necessarily say God created something from nothing.
Ramban makes yesh me'ayin a fundamental principle of Judaism, but Ibn Ezra challenges the assumption that bara means creation ex nihilo at all. It can mean forming, cutting, or setting boundaries. The philosophical problem may be bigger than the biblical one.
- Great ideas are created when traditions collide.
The encounter between Torah and Greek philosophy forced Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers to rethink what creation means. From Philo and Maimonides through Plotinus, al-Fārābī and Crescas, creation evolves from a single event into ideas of emanation, dependence and ultimately continuous creation.
- Maybe creation is not something God did. Maybe creation is something God does—and something we participate in.
Kabbalah imagines creation through tzimtzum, making room for something else. Hasidism imagines the world being renewed continually. And Spinoza takes the argument to its radical conclusion: "Whatever is, is in God"; the human mind is part of God's infinite intellect. Creation becomes not simply a theory about how the universe began, but a way of thinking about God, ourselves, and what it means for us to create.
Timestamps
00:00 What Does "Bara" Really Mean?
02:00 Ramban on Creation Ex Nihilo
05:00 Ibn Ezra: Setting Boundaries
09:00 The Mediaeval Debates
11:00 Hellenism and the Book of Maccabees
12:00 Philo of Alexandria
15:00 Maimonides' Three Theories of Creation
22:00 Harry Wolfson on Divine Emanation
29:00 Luria's Kabbalah and Spinoza's God
Links & Learnings
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